More On Missional Community
Having had a month of intense, over- book schedule, I was a tad nervous going into last week of teaching on our Discipleship Training School (DTS), where I would be helping the students engage the ideas and practices of what it means to be a truly missional community. A core theme of my teaching is building authentic and true community through a process of brokenness and restoration through the pattern of the cross (see this post for a general overview). I tried to instill in them a sense that the depth and quality of the community’s relationships, lived openly before the world, is a central expression of missionality.
During the weeks teaching, one of the students was moved emotionally as they worked to break through the challenges that kept their relationships stalled. Frustrated, passionate and crying, she said:
“How can we expect to be missional in the world if we cannot have open relationships with each other?”
It is an excellent question. If the Gospel we proclaim is the promise of restoration and salvation in our relationships with God, each other, ourselves and Creation, yet fail to walk it out in our lives together, how can we expect our words to have any authority? We are not saved by our work, but the work of salvation, by necessity, will produce- no, demand- transformational change in our lives together.
And yet, as I considered this, the reverse question also presented itself:
“How can we expect to live in transformed and restored relationship together as community if we are living missionally in the world?”
At the end of my week of teaching, I presented our students with a project: They were to come together as a team and consider a missional endeavour they engage together. However, I required that they do so following the values and processes of true community in the process. Immediate they began hitting challenges in the relational aspects of the project. As a result, they (predictably) began to escape into organization, rules and efficiency- essentially the seeds of institutionalism.
Stepping in, I required them to go back to the the requirement that, no matter how frustrating or inefficient, their highest value was to do their task as a true community. As they pushed past the discomfort and inclination to internalize their feelings, it took only a few short minutes for several people to be weeping, sharing deeply personal areas of brokenness exposed by the process. Out of this experience, their “project” is being shaped by something far more personal, more real. They are moving past “good” program and looking at call to restoration and reconciliation that is at the heart of our missional vocation as the Body of Christ.
So in the end, we all begin to see in a very real way that to be missional community is an essentially integrated whole. We cannot be truly missional if we are not fiercely pursuing the costly process of restoration that only comes through the Cross. Equally as important is the reality that it is truly when we are thrust into the missional context of a broken world that we presented with the environment and impetus to be that community. One is not more important than the other. Neither does one come before the other. They are simultaneous and intimately integrated parts of the same whole.
To be missional community is more than simply adding a missional vision and practice into our current congregations. This is important and healthy, but because the mission of God is significantly about the restoration of a dis-integrated Creation, a reconciliation of relationships that were meant to reflect and glorify the nature of God- because of this, it necessarily must redefine the very way in which we are community. Missionality not only defines our posture towards the world, but equally towards each other within our communities and the larger Body of Christ.
In the same way, it is when we find ourselves in the dangerous and liminal reality of missional engagement with the world, if we resist the impulses to escape into institutionalism and shallow “false community”, that we are plunge into an environment that is rich for the formation of the true community. When faced with relationships and circumstances that ask questions that do not fit our formulaic approach to faith, we are given the opportunity to explore within ourselves the barriers that keep us and others from discovering God.
Suddenly, Jesus revolutionary articulation of God’s ulimately command for His people becomes clearer:
Wow, Jamie. Incredibly good stuff. Really insightful, and really pertinent to my life and the life of the community I’m a part of.
I’m curious – when you talk about, “hitting challenges in the relational aspects of the project” – are there patterns you see as being frequently at the root of that sort of thing? I’ll venture from my own experience: it seems to me that it frequently comes down to our brother or sister hitting up against some part of ourselves that we feel like we need to protect – something which requires us to make a difficult choice in favor of trust, risk, and vulnerability. Often in “the heat of the moment”, often when we have good reason to believe that our sister or brother – who’s just as imperfect and broken as we are – may in some way betray that trust.
So this is pretty freaking hard, as I certainly don’t need to tell you.
But thanks for your tirelessness and faith, and for sharing your insights so…insightfully 
with the rest of us.
Peace,
Mike
awesome questions and answers
Hey Mike,
Inevitably, in the pursuit of community, we are confronted with the messy and difficult realities of our lives. Naturally, we want to resist, ignore or deny these realities, as they are uncomfortable and painful. Rather, we retreat into pseudo-community, which is characterized by institutionalism, legalism, hierarchy, efficiency and uniformity. While we may give lip service to being against these things and for true community, in practice we rationalize this retreat more often than not.
It also emerges when we are confronted with other differences and/or brokenness. Our impulse is often to heal, fix, convert or convince. While we could argue that these are good intentions, often they are largely stemming out of a desire to make ourselves more comfortable. Rather, we should seek to first understand, both the other and our own inclination to retreat or change them.
In the context of being missional, one example is how easy it is to allow the natural “leader” and/or dominant personalities to guide the process, often led by efficiency and order. If we are intentional about doing everything in our power to allow our missionality to come out of the whole community, all kinds of brilliance and brokenness will emerge. Some might see this as a distraction (and there are times where urgency must dictate direction), more often than not we need to make the time and room to process through this. What will surprise us is that out of that chaos will be born true ministry, true missionality.
Great thoughts, bro. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
Jerry,
Glad you liked it!
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie, thanks for the thoughtful response. Yeah, challenging, but worth it. I sure hope so, anyway!
Peace,
Mike
Mike,
It is indeed. Nothing less than the shared resurrection life filled with the unify power and purpose of Pentecost!
Peace,
Jamie
this one has got me thiking dude. really thinking… hmmmmmmmm, I appreciate the post. now Ive gone all self reflective…… I think there is some application for me to evaluate
Ryan,
Glad it impacted you. Feel free to share once you’ve reflected on it a while.
Peace,
Jamie
When Tara and i stepped out in faith into our new journey as missionaries we prayed about our mission statement. One part of the vision God gave us was with open Hearts and open Hands. I love the question that your student cried out: How can we be missional when we can’t be open with one another? Powerful question. We hide. We hide behind false happiness. Behind TV. Behind drugs. Behind golf. Behind you name the distraction. And as a result we avoid intimacy, revelation, and Love.
Great post.
Bryan,
Very true. We need to die to these distractions, which may not mean removing them, but rather not allowing them to master us.
The other question is important too. Unless we are choosing to place ourselves into missionality, we will limit our ability to be close. This is what Alan Hirsch calls the Apostolic Environment.
Great thoughts!
Peace,
Jamie
SO important. This is what the church looks like, “para” or otherwise. Reminds me of Newbigin. It has to be the shared reality of the goodness of resurrection life, or else we present the triune community of the Godhead as distorted.
Richard Twiss’ talk on the Trinity and creation and missionality was one of the best things I’ve ever heard, saturated with good theology. The church is the vehicle to call all creation into Community.
Dana
Jamie, thanks for continuing to press in on this matter. You’ve elucidated your thoughts in ways that are keeping the rest of us thinking. I was recently reading something Henri Nouwen said that I believe sheds some light here, but would love to hear what you think:
“In solitude we can come to the realization that we are not driven together but brought together. In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who can satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God’s all-embracing love. In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call. In solitude we indeed realize that community is not made but given.”
(Henri J.M. Nouwen, in “Clowning in Rome”)
The missional nuance seems to jump out with the phrase, “brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God’s all-embracing love.” (i.e. together, we live out God’s love in ways that are redemptive and transforming).
Dana,
Well said. Richard Twiss is a good friend of mine. I am glad you mentioned him, because I think he gets overlooked too much. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
Chris,
Great Nouwen quote. We cannot forget that Nouwen’s experience with solitude was practiced as one who was immersed in intentional community. Solitude has its greatest power when we are stepping away from community. To seek solitude from an already isolated individualism can be (almost) fruitless. That is why writing on solitude resonates with so many yet fails to impact them like it does authors such as Nouwen. Does that make sense?
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie,
Yes, it does make sense. And…it’s a wonderful paradox: solitude within community. Solitude brings something forth in our lives that’s meant to be lived out, enjoyed, and benefitted from within community.
I’ve always resonnated with Ann Morrow Lindbergh:
“It is a difficult
lesson to learn today,
to leave one’s friends
and family and deliberately
practice the art of solitude
for an hour or a day
or a week.
For me, the break
is most difficult…
And yet, once it is done,
I find there is a quality
to being alone that is
incredibly precious.
Life rushes back into the void,
richer,
more vivid,
fuller than before!”
For me, Jamie, these last words describe the qualitative dimension of community, deepened and made more beautiful by what happens to us in our times alone with God.
Have you noticed this?
Blessings,
Chris
Chris,
Excellent addition to this thread. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie